The Subtle Art of Unlearning

instead of remembering to forget

If your go-to sandwich is cholesterol between two slices, and you are in the middle of convincing yourself to eat healthy, you must first unlearn the unhealthiness in your meal. Do not remind yourself to add lettuce, take out the cheese instead.

Reminding yourself to forget is keeping a space in your mind for you to remember.

This is the last time I will write about him.

There was something special about being his,
a space that was me-sized 
like a missing-toothed cookie bite
i was...his 

And is that not what it means to fit into him.
to define his hollows, light up what is dim.
moulded to what he wants to see
but-a thought-did he fit into me?

Belittled and reduced.
did you not see the meaning of what we had 
in the swirls of my eyes when you shattered
the already broken glass you infused
into my spleen

Because i thought only my heart needed to be alert and seen.

The saddest word i know is goodbye 
and i am sorry if i cannot continue to reside with closed eyes in 
your closed mind.
i do not fit into the corners of your doll house
and for the first time since june
i do not want to.

No more because you took all of me
goodbye because of our first hello
lights on because i loved you in the dark
but it's time to let go.

I want to forget you
i need to forget you
because i cannot follow the manuscript you laid out 
because i cannot leave and return 
because i cannot be like them 
i'm sorry but i cannot be your friend.

So i will unlearn you
i will unlearn how to only breathe your oxygen
i will unlearn the swoops in your name 
i will unlearn what your hands felt like
i will unlearn how your voice kept me sane

To love you was painful
to be loved by you, even more so
so i will unlearn the connection between love and you out of existence.

I will unlearn both the dreams we shared 
and the plans you refused to
i will unlearn what it meant 
to be wanted by you

Maybe this isn't goodbye maybe this isn't the last time 
but i need to walk out of this with no regret
so, hurt me, it may, i will unlearn you
until i do not need to remind myself to forget

-Macy D'caporah

Letting go feels like losing, all the time.

It’s a mental trick meant to keep you holding on. When he let go of me, my primal instinct was to keep reliving past experiences, keep formulating reasons to keep.holding.on. I started a series, about him. I called it “Days of Accountability” where I wrote through the process of outliving the memories of him, the journey of letting go.

Really it was just an excuse to keep him alive in my mind.

I realised, that yes it might be love, but it was no longer obsession. I didn’t have an urge to reach out but I think my feelings were insulted by my lack of enthusiasm. I was hurt from him, I was angry at him, i should WANT to scream to him, but I didn’t. After a one or two weeks, 12 hours of thinking about him turned to 10, then to five. I’m not over him, but i could let go, if only I allowed myself.

So instead of reminding myself to forget,

I began to unlearn.

Unlearnt his favourite colour, dissociate him from songs I listened to, put his hoodie in storage. Instead of wiping out his existence, I unlearned his importance and this is just one example in a chain of events.

Unlearn junk if you want to eat healthy, unlearn disorganisation if you want to find order, unlearn hurt if you want to embrace emotion. You can’t ‘fit into’ your weaknesses, let your strengths fit into you. He stopped loving me so I unlearnt being loved by him, but there are going to be aspects of our lives that we don’t get that push. We have to BE that push.

Some things will always bother you but they don’t have to have power over you anymore. For time I was burdened with thinking about how quiet I was on the last phone call but I had so much left to say. Now, I am accepting that somethings are better left unsaid.

Without understanding how to unlearn, we may have a desire to be better but at the end of the day, we are just a bunch of people with a bunch of bad habits. Accept your faults, accept your reality. Then, instead of remembering to forget,

Master the Subtle art of Unlearning.

xo, MD.